An election of civil and judicial officers was impending in Kildeer
County when a comet appeared in the July sky, a mysterious, aloof,
uncanny presence, that invaded the night and the stereotyped routine of
nature with that gruesome effect of the phenomenal which gives to the
mind so definite a realization of how dear and secure is the prosaic
sense of custom.

All the lenses of the great observatories of the world had, in a
manner, sought to entertain the strange visitant of the heavens. The
learned had gone so far as to claim its acquaintance, to recognize it
as the returning comet of a date long gone by. It even carried amidst
its shining glories, along the far unimagined ways of its orbit, the
name of a human beingof the man who had discovered it on its former
visit, for thus splendidly does astronomy honor its votaries. Less
scientific people regarded it askance as in some sort harbinger of woe,
and spoke of presage, recalling other comets, and the commotions that
came in their trainfrom the Deluge, with the traditional cometary
influences rife in the breaking up of the fountains of the great
deep, to the victories of Mohammed II. and the threatened overthrow of
Christendom, and even down to our own war of 1812. Others, again,
scorned superstition, and entertained merely practical misgivings
concerning the weight, density, and temperature of the comet, lest the
eccentric aerial wanderer should run amuck of the earth in some
confusion touching the right of way through space.

Meanwhile, it grew from the semblance of a vaporous tissuean
illuminated haze only discernible through the telescope, the private
view of the favored fewtill it gradually became visible to the
unassisted eye of the profanum vulgus, and finally it flamed
across the darkling spaces with its white crown of glory, its splendid
wing-like train, and its effect of motion as of a wondrous flight among
the starsand all the world, and, for aught we know, many worlds,
gazed at it.

Only in some great desert, the vast stretches of unsailed seas, or
the depths of uninhabited forests, were its supernal splendors unnoted.
It sunk as wistful, as tremulous, a reflection in a lonely pool in the
dense mountain wilds as any simple star, a familiar of these haunts,
that had looked down to mark its responsive image year after year, for
countless ages, whenever the season brought it, in its place in the
glittering mail of the Archer, or among the jewels of the Northern
Crown, once more to the spot it had known and its tryst with its fair
semblance in the water.

The great silver flake which the comet struck out upon the serene
surface lay glinting there among the lesser stellar reflections, when a
man, kneeling in a gully of the steep bank sloping to the salt lick,
leaned forward suddenly to gaze at it; then, with a gasp, turned his
eyes upward to that flaming blade drawn athwart the peaceful sky. He
did not utter a sound. The habit of silence essential to the
deer-hunter kept its mechanical hold upon his nerves. Only the hand
with which he grasped the half-exposed roots of a great sycamore-tree,
denuded in some partial caving of the bank long ago, relaxed and
trembled slightly.

He was a man of scant and narrow experience, his world the
impenetrable mountain wilderness, and, though seemingly the pupil of
nature, versed in the ways of beast and bird, the signs of the clouds,
the seasons of bourgeoning and burr, it was but of casual external
aspects. He knew naught of its wondrous history, its subtler
significance, its strange recordthe flood-tides registered on that
cliff beyond the laurel; the reptilian trail in the ledge beneath the
butt of his rifle, the imprint still fast in the solid rock, albeit the
species extinct; the great bones of ancient unknown beasts sunk in the
depressions of this saline quagmire, which herds of them had once
frequented for the salt, as did of late the buffalo, and now the
timorous deer, wont to come, like shadows wavering in the wind, to lick
the briny earth. The strange, glinting blade overhead had no claim on
his recognition as the comet of Aristotle, or the evil-disposed
comet personified by the Italians as Sir Great-Lance, il Signor
Astone, or Halley's comet, or Donati's. Self is the centre of the
solar system with many souls, and around this point do all its
incidents revolve. For him that wondrous white fire was kindled
in the skies, for him, in special relation to his small life, to
the wish nearest his hot human heart, to the clumsy scheme dear to his
slow, crude brain. He thought it a warning then: and later he thought
this still.

Some vague stirthe wind perhaps, or perhaps a light-footed
dryadflitted past and was gone. The surface of the lick rippled
with her footprints, and was smooth again. All the encompassing masses
of trees and undergrowth about the place were densely black and opaque,
giving the sense of absolute solidity and weight, except upon the
verges, which were somehow shaded off into a cloudy brown against the
translucent dove-tinted tissues in which the night seemed enveloped and
obscured save for the white gleaming of the stars. This was the clear
color that the brackish water wore as it reflected the night. It
reflected suddenly a facea face with a long velvety muzzle, a pair of
spreading antlers, and dark eyes, gentle, timorous, liquidly bright.
The water stirred with a sibilant lapping sound as the buck's tongue
licked at the margin. Once he held up his head to listen, with his hoof
lifted, then he bent again to the ripples. There was slight relation
between him, the native of these woods, and that wayward waif of the
skies; but among the unnumbered influences and incidents of its course
it served to save that humble sylvan life for a space. The hunter
neither saw nor heard.

It was only when the deer with a sudden snort and a precipitate
bound fled crashing through the laurel that Walter Hoxon became aware
of his presence, and of the stealthy approach that had alarmed him. The
approach was stealthy no longer. A quick, nervous tread, a rustling of
the boughs, and as the hunter rose to his feet his elder brother
emerged from the undergrowth, taller than he as they stood together on
the margin of the lick, more active, sinewy, alert.

Whyn't ye take a shot at him, Wat? cried Justus Hoxon
tumultuously. I'll be bound ye war nappin', he added in keen rebuke.

A pause, then Walter Hoxon pulled himself together and retorted:

Nappin'! in scornful falsetto. How could I get a shot,
with ye a-trompin' up ez n'isy ez a herd o' cattle?

The reproach evidently struck home, for the elder said nothing. With
the thoroughness characteristic of the habitual liar, Walter proceeded
to add circumstance to his original statement.

I seen the buck whenst he fust kem sidlin' an' slippin' up ter the
water, oneasy an' onsartain from the fust minute. I hed jes' sighted my
rifle. An' hyar ye kem, a-bulgin' out o' the lau'l, an' sp'iled my
shot. As the verisimilitude of his representations bore upon him, he
unconsciously assumed the sentiments natural to the situation
simulated. Who tole ye ez I war hyar, anyhows? he demanded angrily.

At the name the other had turned slightly away and looked down, a
gesture that invidious daylight might have interpreted as anxiety, or
faltering, or at the least replete with consciousness. But even if open
to observation, it could scarcely have signified aught to Justus Hoxon,
wrapped in his own thoughts, and in his absorbing interest in the
events of the day. His mental attitude was so apparent to his brother,
albeit his form was barely distinguishable as they stood together by
the salt lick, that Wat ventured a questiona bold one, it seemed to
him, and he felt a chill because of its temerity.

There was a note of surprise in his brother's voice from which Wat
shrank in sudden alarm. Oh, 'Dosia! Course she war glad. I seen her
jes' now, an' she told me ez ye hed kem down ter the lick ter git a
shot at the deer, bein' ez she hed 'lowed the venison war powerful good
'bout now. I never stayed but a minute. I says, ''Dosia, ye an' me hev
got the rest o' our lives ter do our courtin' in, but this 'lection hev
got ter be tended ter now, kase ef Wat ain't 'lected it'll set
him back all his life. Some folks 'low ez 't ain't perlite an'
respec'ful, nohow, fur pore folks like we-uns ter run fur office, like
ez ef we war good ez anybody.' An' 'Dosia she jes' hustled me out'n the
house. 'G'long! G'long! Do everything 'bout'n the 'lection! Turn
every stone! Time enough fur courtin' arterward! Time enough!'

A vicarious ambition is the most ungrateful of passions. There was
something more than anger, than eager affection, than urgent reproach,
than prescient alarm, albeit all rang sharply forth, in his brother's
voice raised to reply; it was a keen note of helplessness, from which
Walter's nerves recoiled with a sense of pain, so insistently clamorous
it was.

There was a strained tone in his voice, not far foreign to a sob, as
he repeated these derisive flouts at his early and forlorn estate.

An' now, resuming their rehearsal, this enlightened constituency
was asked ter bestow on a scion o' this same 'Fambly'ignorant, scrub,
pauperan office of great importance to the people, that needed to
fill it a man o' eddication an' experiunce, varsed in the ways o' the
worldasked to bestow the office o' sheriff o' the county on a man who
war so obviously incomp'tent an' illit'rate that he darsn't face the
people ter make his perposterous demand!

The wind came and went. The darkling bushes bowed and bent again.
The leaves took up their testimony in elusive, sibilant mutterings.
Justus Hoxon's eyes were cast upward for a moment, as he watched a
massive bough of an oak-tree sway against the far sky, shutting off the
stars, which became visible anew as the elastic branch swung back once
more. Only the pallor of his face and a certain lustrous liquid gleam
betokening his eyes were distinguishable to his brother, who
nevertheless watched him with anxiety and quickened breathing as he
went on:

That thar feller hed sca'cely stepped down off'n that thar stump
afore I war on ter it. I asked fur a few minutes' attention, an'
'lowed, I did, that Mr. Markham's account o' the humble beginnin's of
me an' 'Fambly' war accurate an' exac'. (Everybody hed looked fur me
ter deny it, or ter git mad, or suthin', an' they war toler'ble
s'prised.) 'Fambly' did eat out'n the pot permiscuous, an' made
a mighty pore dinner thar many a day. An' 'Fambly' washed thar clothes
ez described, infrequent enough, an' no doubt war ez ragged an' dirty
ez they war hongry. But, I said, Mr. Markham hedn't told the haffen o'
it. Cold winter nights, when the snow sifted in through the cracks, an'
the wind blew in the rotten old door, 'Fambly' liked ter hev friz ter
death. They hed the pneumonia, an' whoopin'-cough, an' croup; an' in
summer, bein' a perverse set o' brats, 'Fambly' hed fever an' ager, an'
similar ailments common ter the young o' the human race, the same ez
ef 'Fambly' war folks! 'T war 'stonishin', kem ter think of it, how
'Fambly' hed the insurance ter grow up ter look like folks, let
alone settin' out ter run fur office; an' ef God hedn't raised 'em up
some mighty good frien's in this county, I reckon thar wouldn't be much
o' 'Fambly' left. Some folks 'low ez Providence hev got mighty leetle
jedgmint in worldly affairs, an' this mus' be one o' the strikin'
instances of it. These frien's gin the bigges' boy work ter do, an'
that holped ter keep 'Fambly's' bodies an' souls tergether. I reckon,
says I, that I hev ploughed in the fields o' haffen the men in our
deestric'; I hev worked in the tan-yard; I hev been striker in the
blacksmith shop; an' all the time that pot, aforesaid, b'iled at home,
an' 'Fambly' tuk thar dinner thar constant, with thar fingers,
ez aforesaid. But 'Fambly' warn't so durned ragged, nuther. Good
neighbors gin 'em some clothes wunst in a while, an' l'arned the gals
ter sew an' cook some. An' thar kem ter be a skillet an' a fryin'-pan
on the h'a'th ter holp the pot out. Why, 'Fambly' got so prosperous
that one day, whenst a' ole, drunken, cripple, ragged man war passin',
they enj'yed themselves mightily, laffin' at somebody po'rer than
themselves. An' ole Pa'son Tyson war goin' by in his gig, an' he
tuk note o' the finger o' scorn, an' he stopped. He said mighty leetle,
but he tuk the trouble ter cut a stout hickory sprout, an' he gin
'Fambly' a good thrashin' all roun'. It lasted 'Fambly' well. They
ain't laffed at 'God's pore' sence! Waal, 'Fambly' 's takin' up too
much o' this enlightened assembly's attention. Enough to tell what's
kem o' 'Fambly.' The oldes' gal went ter free school, l'arned ter read,
write, an' cipher, an' married Pa'son Tyson's son, ez air a minister o'
the gospel a-ridin' a Methodis' circuit in north Georgy now. An' the
second galhis voice falteredshe went ter free school,
l'arned mo' still o' readin' an' writin' an' cipherin', an' taught
school two year down on Bird Creek, an' war goin' ter be married ter a
good man, well-ter-do, who had built her a house, not knowin' ez God
hed prepared her a mansion in the skies. She is livin' thar now!
An' las', the Benjamin o' all the tribe, kems my brother Walter. He
went ter school; kin read, write, an' cipher; he's been taught ez much
ez any man ez ever held the office he axes ter be 'lected ter, an' air
thoroughly competent. Fac' is, gentlemen, thar's nothin' lef' ter show
fur the humble 'Fambly' Mr. Markham's be'n tellin' 'bout, but me. I
never went ter school, 'ceptin' in yer fields. I l'arned ter cure
hides, an' temper steel, an' shoe horse-critters, so that pot mought be
kep' a-b'ilin', an' 'Fambly' mought dine accordin' to thar humble way
in them very humble days that somehow, gentlemen, I ain't got an' can't
git the grace ter be 'shamed of yit.

He paused abruptly as he concluded the recital of his speech, and
wiped his face with the back of his hand. I wisht ye could hev hearn
them men cheer. They jes' hollered tharse'fs hoarse. They shuck hands
till they mighty nigh yanked my arm out'n its socket. With the
recollection, he rubbed his right arm with a gesture of pain.

Something there was in the account of this ovation that smote upon
the younger brother's sense of values, and he hastened to take
possession of it.

Oh, I knowed I war powerful pop'lar in the Sycamore Gap deestric',
he said, dropping his lowering manner, that had somehow been
perceptible in the darkness, and wagging his head from side to side
with a gesture of great security in the affections of Sycamore Gap.
Sycamore Gap's all right, I know; I'll poll a big majority thar,
sure.

I reckon ye will; but I warn't so sure o' that at fust, replied
the elder. They 'peared ter me at fust ter be sorter set ag'in
usleastwise me, though arter a while I could hardly git away
from 'em, they war so durned friendly.

Walter cast a keen look upon him; but he evidently spoke from his
simple heart, and was all unaware that he was personally the source of
this sudden popularity in Sycamore Gaphis magnetism, his unconscious
eloquence, and his character as shown in the simple and forlorn annals
of Fambly. And yet he was not crudely unthinking. He perceived the
incongruity of his brother's successive standpoints.

The resources of subterfuge are well-nigh limitless. Walter Hoxon
was an adept in utilizing them. He had seen a warning in the skies, and
it had struck terror and discouragement to his heart; but not to his
political prospects had he felt its application. Other schemes, deeper,
treacherous, secret, seemed menaced, and his conscience, or that
endowment to quake with the fear of requital that answers for
conscience in some ill-developed souls, was set astir. Nevertheless,
the election might suffice as scapegoat.

Look a-yander, Justus, he said suddenly, pointing with the muzzle
of his gun at the brilliant wayfarer of the skies, as if he might in
another moment essay a shot. That thar critter means mischief, sure ez
ye air born.

The other stepped back a pace or two, and lifted his head to look.

The comic? he demanded. Walter's silence seemed assent.
Laws-a-massy, ye tomfool, Justus cried, let it be a sign ter them ez
run ag'in' ye! Count the comic in like a qualified voterit kem hyar
on account o' the incumbent's incompetence in office. Signs! Rolf
Quigley is sign enough,if ye want signs in 'lections,with money,
an' frien's, an' a term of office, an' the reg'lar nominee o' the
party, an' ye jes' an independent candidate. No star a-waggin' a tale
aroun' the sky air haffen ez dangerous ter yer 'lection ez him. An' he
ain't lookin' at no comic! He looked this evenin' like he'd put his
finger in his mouth in one more minute, plumb 'shamed ter his boot-sole
o' the things Markham hed said. An' Markham he kem up ter me before a
crowd o' fellers, an' says, says he: 'Mr. Hoxon, I meant no reflections
on yer fambly in alludin' ter its poverty, an' I honor ye fur yer
lifelong exertions in its behalf. I take pride, sir, in makin' this
apology.' An' I says: 'I be a' illit'rate, humble man, Mr. Markham; but
I will venture the liberty to tell ye ez ye mought take mo' pride in
givin' no occasion fur apologies ter poverty.' Them fellers standin'
aroun' jes' laffed. I knowed he didn't mean a word he said then, but
war jes' slickin' over the things he hed said on Quigley's
account, kase the crowd seemed ter favor me. I say, comic! Let Rolf
Quigley take the comic fur a sign.

It is easy to pluck up fears that have no root. Oh, I be goin' ter
'lectioneer all the same ez ever. Whar 's the nex' place we air bound
fur?

Walter put his hand on his brother's shoulder as he asked the
question, and in the eager unfolding of plans and possibilities the
two, as Justus talked, made their way along the deer-path beside the
salt lick, leaving the stars coldly glittering on the ripples, with
that wonderful streak of white fire reflected among them; leaving, too,
the vaguely whispering woods, communing with the wind as it came and
went; reaching the slope of the mountain at last, where was perched,
amid sterile fields and humble garden-patch, the little cabin in which
Fambly had struggled through its forlorn youth to better days.

* * * * *

The door was closed after this. A padlock knocked against it when
the wind blew, as if spuriously announcing a visitor. The deceit failed
of effect, for there was no inmate left, and the freakish gust could
only twirl the lock anew, and go swirling down the road with a rout of
dust in a witches' dance behind it. The passers-by took note of the
deserted aspect of things, and knew that the brothers were absent
electioneering, and wondered vaguely what the chances might be. This
passing was somewhat more frequent than was normal along the road; for
when the mists that had hung about the mountains persistently during a
warm, clammy, wet season had withdrawn suddenly, and one night revealed
for the first time the comet fairly ablaze in the sky, a desire to hear
what was said and known about it at the Cross-Roads and the settlement
and the blacksmith shop took possession of the denizens of the region,
and the coteries of amateur astronomers at these centres were added to
daily. Some remembered a comet or two in past times, and if the
deponent were advanced in years his hearers were given to understand
that the present luminary couldn't hold a tallow dip to the
incandescent terrors he recollected. There were utilitarian souls who
were disquieted about the crops, and anxiously examined growing ears of
corn, expecting to find the comet's influence tucked away in the husks.
Some looked for the end of the world; those most obviously and
determinedly pious took, it might seem, a certain unfraternal joy in
the contrast of their superior forethought, in being prepared for the
day of doom, with the uncovenanted estate of the non-professor. A
revival broke out at New Bethel; the number of mourners grew in
proportion as the comet got bigger night by night. Small wonder that as
evening drew slowly on, and the flaring, assertive, red west gradually
paled, and the ranges began to lose semblance and symmetry in the dusk,
and the river gloomed benighted in the vague circuit of its course, and
a lonely star slipped into the sky, darkening, too, till, rank after
rank, and phalanx after phalanx, all the splendid armament of night had
mustered, with that great, glamourous guidon in the midstsmall wonder
that the ignorant mountaineer looked up at the unaccustomed thing to
mark it there, and fear smote his heart.

At these times certain of the little sequestered households far
among the wooded ranges got them within their doors, as if to place
between them and the uncanny invader of the night, and the threatening
influences rife in the very atmosphere, all the simple habitudes of
home. The hearthstone seemed safest, the door a barrier, the home
circle a guard. Others spent the nocturnal hours in the dooryard or on
the porch, marking the march of the constellations, and filling the
time with vague speculations, or retailing dreadful rumors of strange
happenings in the neighboring coves, and wild stories of turmoil and
misfortune that comets had wrought years ago.

It was at one of these makeshift observatories that Justus Hoxon
stopped the first evening after his electioneering tour in the interest
of his brother. The weather had turned hot and fair; a drought, a
set-off to the surplusage of recent rain, was in progress; the dooryard
on the high slope of the mountain, apart from its availability for the
surveillance of any eccentric doings of the comet, was an acceptable
lounging-place for the sake of the air, the dew, the hope of a vagrant
breeze, and, more than all, the ample elbow-room which it offered the
rest of the family while he talked with Theodosia Blakely. The rest of
the familyunwelcome wights!were not disposed to make their
existence obtrusive; on the contrary, they did much to further his
wishes, even to the sacrifice of personal predilection. Mrs. Blakely,
her arms befloured, her hands in the dough, had observed him at the
gate, while she stood at the biscuit-block in the shed-room, and
although pining to rush forth and ask the latest news from the
settlement and the comet, she only called out in a husky undertone:
'Dosia, 'Dosia, yander's Justus a-kemin' in the gate! Put on yer white
apern, chile.

Because she had been adjured to put on her white apron, Theodosia
did not put it on. She advanced to the window, about which grew, with
its graceful habit, a hop-vine. A little slanting roof was above the
lintel, a mere board or so, with a few warped shingles; but it made a
gentle shadow, and Theodosia thought few men besides the one at the
gate would have failed to see her there. He lingered a little, turning
back to glance over the landscape, and then he deflected his course
toward a rough bench that was placed in a corner of the rail fence,
threw himself upon it, and fanned himself with his broad-brimmed hat.

She hesitated a moment, then took her sunbonnet and went out to meet
him.

The scene was like some great painting, with this corner in the
foreground left unfinished, so minute was the detail of the distance,
so elaborate and perfect the coloring of the curves of purple, and
amethyst, and blue mountains afar off, rising in tiers about the
cup-shaped valley. Above it hung a tawny tissue of haze, surcharged
with a deeply red, vinous splendor, as if spilled from the stirrup-cup
of the departing sun. He was already out of sight, spurring along
unknown ways. The sky was yellow here and amber there, and a pearly
flake, its only cloud, glittered white in the midst. Up the hither
slope the various green of the pine and the poplar, the sycamore and
the sweet-gum, was keenly differentiated, but where the rail fence drew
the line of demarkation, Art seemed to fail.

A crude wash of ochre had apparently sufficed for the dooryard; no
weed grew here, no twig. It was tramped firm and hard by the feet of
cow, and horse, and the peripatetic children, and poultry. The cabin
was drawn in with careless angles and lines by a mere stroke or two;
and surely no painter, no builder save the utilitarian backwoodsman,
would have left it with no relief of trees behind it, no vineyard, no
garden, no orchard, no background, naught; in its gaunt simplicity and
ugliness it stood against its own ill-tended fields flattening away in
the rear.

Such as it was, however, it satisfied all of Justus Hoxon's sense of
the appropriate and the picturesque when Theodosia Blakely stepped out
from the door and came slowly to meet him. The painter's art, if she
were to be esteemed part of the foreground, might have seemed redeemed
in her. Her dress was of light blue homespun; her sunbonnet of deep red
calico, pushed back, showed her dark brown hair waving upward in heavy
undulations from her brow, her large blue eyes with their thick black
lashes, her rich brunette complexion, her delicate red lips cut in fine
lines, and the gleam of her teeth as she smiled. She had a string of
opaque white, wax-like beads around the neck of her dress, and the
contrast of the pearly whiteness of the bauble with the creamy
whiteness and softness of her throat was marked with much finish. Her
figure was hardly of medium height, and, despite the suppleness of
youth, as plump as a partridge, according to the familiar saying. The
clear iris of her eyes gave an impression of quick shifting, and by
them one could see her mood change as she approached.

She looked at him intently, speculatively, a sort of doubtful
curiosity furtively suggested in her expression; but there was naught
subtle or covert in the gaze that met hersnaught but the frankest
pleasure and happiness. He did not move, as she advanced, nor offer
formal greeting; he only smiled, secure, content, restful, as she came
up and sat down on the end of the bench. The children, playing noisily
in the back yard on the wood-pile, paused for a moment to gaze with
callow interest at them; but the spectacle of The'dosia's sweetheart
was too familiar to be of more than fleeting diversion, and they
resorted once more to their pastime. Mrs. Blakely too, who with
rolling-pin in her hand had turned to gaze out of the window, went back
to rolling out the dough vigorously, with only the muttered comment,
Wish The'dosia didn't know how much I'd like that man fur a
son-in-law, then she'd be willin' ter like him better herse'f.

He was unconscious of them all, as he leaned his elbow on the
projecting rails of the fence at their intersection close at hand.

Hev ye hed yer health, The'dosia? he said.

Don't I look like it? she replied laughingly.

There was something both of cordiality and coquetry in her manner.
Her large eyes narrowed as she laughed, and albeit they glittered
between their closing lids, the expression was not pleasant. Levity did
not become her.

His look, his words, were charged with no sort of recognition or
value of her beauty: clearly her challenge had fallen to the ground
unnoticed.

He'd like me jes' ez well ef I war all pitted up with the smallpox,
or ez freckled ez a tur-r-key-aig, she thought, flushing with
irritation.

Beauty is jealous of preëminence, and would fain have precedence
even of love. She could take no sort of satisfaction in a captive that
her bright eyes had not shackled. Somehow this love seemed to flout, to
diminish, her attractions. It was like an accident. She could account
for his subjection on no other grounds. As she sat silent, grave enough
now and very beautiful, gazing askance and troubled upon him, he went
on:

I war so oneasy an' beset lest suthin' hed happened on the
mounting, whilst I war away, ter trouble you-uns or some o' yer folks.
I never hed time ter study much 'bout sech in the day, but I dreamt
'bout ye in the night, an' all night,he laughed a
little,all sort'n mixed up things. I got ter be a plumb Joseph fur
readin' dreamsonly I could read the same one forty diff'rent ways,
an' every way made me a leetle mo' oneasy than the t'other one. I
s'pose ye hev been perlite enough ter miss me a leetle, he concluded.

She flashed her great eyes at him with a pretended stare of
surprise. Myno! she exclaimed. We-uns hev hed the comet ter keep
us comp'nywe ain't missed nobody!

He laughed a little, as at a repartee, and then went on:

Waal, the comic war a-cuttin' a pretty showy figger down yander at
Colbury. 'Ston-ishin' how much store folks do 'pear ter set on it! They
hed rigged up some sort'n peepin'-glass in the Court-House yard, an'
thar war mighty nigh the whole town a-squinchin' up one eye ter
examinate the consarn through itall the court off'cers,
'torney-gin'ral, an' sech, an' old Doctor Kane an' Jedge Peters,
besides a whole passel o' ginerality folks. They 'lowed the glass made
it 'pear bigger.

Did it? she asked, with sudden interest.

Bless yer soul, chile, I didn't hev time ter waste on it.
Jedge Peters he beckoned ter me, an' 'lowed he'd interjuce me ter it;
but I 'lowed the comic outside war plenty big enough fur me. 'Jedge,' I
says, 'my mission hyar air ter make onnecessary things seem small, not magnified. That's why I'm continually belittlin' Rolf Quigley. Wat
kin go on lookin' cross-eyed at the stars, ef so minded, but I be bound
ter tend ter the 'lection.' An' the jedge laffed and says: 'Justus,
nex' time I want ter git 'lected ter office, I'm goin' ter git ye
ter boost me in. Ye hev got it a sight mo' at heart than yer brother.'
Fur thar war Wat, all twisted up at the small e-end o' the
tellingscope, purtendin' ter be on mighty close terms with the comic,
though lots o' other men said it jes' dazed thar eyes, an' they
couldn't see nuthin' through it, an' mighty leetle arterward
through sightin' so long one-eyed.

Waal, how's the prospects fur the 'lection? she asked.

Fine! Fine! he answered with gusto. Folks all be so frien'ly
everywhar ter we-uns.

He leaned his shoulder suddenly back against the rough rails of the
fence. His hat was in his hand. His hair, fine, thin, chestnut-brown,
and closely clinging about his narrow head, was thrown back from his
forehead. His clear blue eyes were turned upward, with the light of
reminiscence slowly dawning in them. It may have been the reflection of
the dazzling flake of cloud, it may have been some mental illumination,
but a sort of radiance was breaking over the keen, irregular lines of
his features, and a flush other than the floridity of a naturally fair
complexion was upon his thin cheek and hollow temple.

His eyes filled with sudden tears. They did not fall; they were
absorbed somehow as he resumed:

Sech a superflu'ty o' frien's nowadays! Ef 't warn't they'd count
fur all they're wuth in the ballot-box, I'd hev no use fur 'em. I kin
sca'cely 'member thar names. But then I hed jes' onejes'
one in all the worl'yer mother! Bless her soul! he concluded
enthusiastically.

He was still and reflective for a moment. Then he made a motion as
though he would take one of Theodosia's hands. But she clasped both of
them demurely behind her.

I don't hold hands with no man ez blesses another 'oman's soul by
the hour, she said, with an affectation of primness.

There may have been something more serious in her playful rebuff,
but in the serenity of his perfect security he did not feel it or gauge
its depth.

A glimpse of her mother at the window added its suggestiona lean,
sallow, lined face, full of anxious furrows, with a rim of scanty
gray-streaked hair about the brow, with spectacles perched above, and
beneath the flabby jaw a scraggy, wrinkled neck.

She 'pears plumb beautiful to my mind, he said
unequivocally,all of a piece with her beautiful life.

Theodosia was suddenly grave, angered into a secret, sullen
irritation. These were words she loved for herself: it was but lately
she had learned so to prize them. Her eyes were as bright as a deer's!
Had not some one protested this, with a good round rural oath as
attestation? Her hair on the back of her head, and its shape to the
nape of her neck, were so beautifulshe had never seen it: how could
she say it wasn't? Her chin and her throatwell, if people could think
snow was a prettier white, he wouldn't give much for their
head-stuffin'. And her blush! her blush! It was her own fault. He would
not have taken another kiss if she had not blushed so at the first that
he must needs again see her cheek glow like the wild rose.

These were echoes of a love-making that had lately taken hold of her
heart, that had grown insistently sweet and dear to her, that had
established its sway impetuously, tyrannically, over her life, that had
caused her to seem more to herself, and as if she were infinitely more
to her new lover.

She wondered how she could ever have even tolerated this dullard,
with his slow, measured preference, his unquestioning security of her
heart, his doltish credulity in her and her promise, his humble
gratitude to her mother,who had often enough, in good sooth, got full
value in return for aught she gave,who appeared beautiful to his
mind. She broke forth abruptly, her cheeks flushing, her eyes brave and
bright, the subject nearest her heart on her lips, in the sudden influx
of courage set astir by the mere contemplation of it.

Waal now, tell 'bout Wathow he enj'ys bein' a candidate, an'
sech. Then, with a tremor because of her temerity: I have hearn o'
that thar beautisome old 'oman a time or two afore, but Wat ez a
candidate air sorter fraish an' new.

He turned his clear, unsuspicious eyes upon her. He had replaced his
wide wool hat on his head, and he leaned forward, resting his cheek on
his hand and his elbow on his knee. He aimlessly flicked his long
spurred boot, as he talked, with a willow wand which he carried in lieu
of horsewhip.

Ah, Theodosia's beauty well deserved the guerdon of sweet words. She
might have been pictured as a thirsting Hebe. She had a look of
quaffing some cup of nectar, still craving its depths, so immediate a
joy, so intense a light, were in her widely open eyes; her lips were
parted; the spray of blackberry leaves that she held near her cheek did
not quiver, so had her interest petrified every muscle. She was leaning
slightly forward; her red sunbonnet had fallen to the ground, and the
wind tossed her dark brown hair till the heavy masses, with their
curling ends disheveled, showed tendrils of golden hue. Her round,
plump arm was like ivory. The torn sleeve fell away to the elbow, and
her mother, glancing out of the window, took remorseful heed of it, and
wished that she herself had set a stitch in it.

Why, 'Dosia, he went on, everybody 'lowed ez Wat's speeches
seemed ter sense what the people wanted ter hear. Him an' me we'd talk
it over the night before, an' Wat he'd write down what we said on paper
an' mem'rize it; an' the nex' day, why, folks that wouldn't hev nuthin'
ter say ter him afore he spoke would be jes' aidgin' up through the
crowd ter git ter shake han's with him.

She smiled with delight at the picture. If it were sweet to him to
praise, how sweet it was to her to listen! Tell on! she said softly.

Her interest flattered him; it enriched the reminiscence, dear
though his memory held it. He had no doubt as to the unity of feeling
with which they both regarded the incidents he chronicled. He went on
with the certainty of responsive sentiment, the ease, the serenity of a
man who opens his heart to the woman he loves.

Why, 'Dosia, he said, often, often if it hed n't been fur the
folks, I could hev run up an' dragged him off'n the rostrum an' hugged
him fur pride, he looked so han'some an' spoke so peart! An' ter think
't war jes' our leetle Watthe Fambly's leetle Watgrowed up ter be
sech a man! Ye'll laff at meother folks didwhenst I tell ye that
ag'in an' ag'in I jes' cotch' myse'f cheerin' with the loudest. I could
n't holp it.

He'll be 'lected, Justus? she breathlessly inquired, and yet
imperatively, as if, even though she asked, she would brook no denial.

Oh, they all say thar's no doubtno doubt at all.

She drew a long breath of contentment, of pleasure. She leaned back,
silent and reflective, against the rail fence behind the bench, her
eyes fixed, absorbed, following the outline of other scenes than the
one before them, which indeed left no impression upon her senses,
scenes to come, slowly shaping the future. All trace of the red glow of
the sun had departed from the landscape. No heavy, light-absorbing,
sad-hued tapestries could wear so deep a purple, such sombre
suggestions of green, as the circling mountains had now assumed: they
were not black, and yet such depths of darkness hardly comported with
the idea of color. The neutral tints of the sky were graded more
definitely, with purer transparency, because of the contrast. The fine
grays were akin to pearl color, to lavender, even, in approaching the
zenith, to the palest of blueso pale that the white glitter of a star
alternately appeared and was lost again in its tranquil
inexpressiveness. The river seemed suddenly awake; its voice was lifted
loud upon the evening air, a rhythmic song without words. The frogs
chanted by the waterside. Fireflies here and there quivered palely over
the flat cornfields at the back of the house. There was a light within,
dully showing through the vines at the window.

She roused herself with an obvious effort, and looked
uncomprehendingly at him for a moment, as if she hardly heard.

The las' one o' Fambly will be off my han's then. Fambly will hev
been pervided furevery one, Wat an' all. I hev done my bes' fur
Fambly, an' I dunno but I hev earned the right ter think some fur
myse'f now.

He would not perhaps have arrogated so much, except to the woman by
whom he believed himself beloved. She said nothing, and he went on
slowly, lingering upon the words as if he loved the prospect they
conjured up.

It was a hot day in the little valley town, the first Thursday in
August, the climax of a drought, with the sun blazing down from dawn to
dusk, and not a cloud, not a vagrant mist, not even the stir of the
impalpable ether, to interpose. The mountains that rimmed the horizon
all around Colbury shimmered azure, through the heated air. No wind
came down those darker indentations that marked ravines. A dazzling,
stifling stillness reigned; yet now and again an eddying cloud of dust
would spring up along the streets, and go whirling up-hill and down,
pausing suddenly, and settling upon the overgrown shrubbery in the
pretty village yards, or on white curtains hanging motionless at the
windows of large, old-fashioned frame houses. Even the shade was hot
with a sort of closeness unknown in the open air, yet as it dwindled to
noontide proportions some alleviation seemed withdrawn; and though the
mercury marked no change, all the senses welcomed the post-meridian
lengthening of the images of bough and bole beneath the trees, and the
fantastic architecture of the shadows of chimney and gable and
dormer-window, elongated out of drawing, stretching across the grassy
streets and ample gardens. There among the grape trellises, and
raspberry bushes, and peach and cherry trees, the locusts chirred and
chirred a tireless, vibrating panegyric on hot weather. The birds were
hushed; sometimes under a clump of matted leaves one of the feathered
gentry might be seen with wings well held out from his panting sides.
The beautiful green beetle, here called the June-bug, hovered about
the beds of thyme, its jeweled, enameled green body and its silver
gauze wings flashing in the sun, although June was far down the
revolving year. Blue and lilac lizards basked in the garden walks,
which were cracked by the heat. Little stir was in the streets; the
languid business of a small town was transacted if absolute need
required, and postponed if a morrow would admit of contemplation. The
voters slowly repaired to the polls with a sense of martyrdom in the
cause of party, and the election was passing off in a most orderly
fashion, there being no residuum of energy in the baking town to render
it disorderly or unseemly. Often not a human being was to be seen,
coming or going.

To Theodosia it was all vastly different from the picture she had
projected of Colbury with an election in progress. In interest,
movement, populousness, it did not compare with a county-court day,
which her imagination had multiplied when she estimated the relative
importance of the events. She had made no allowance for the absence of
the country people, specially wont to visit the town when the quarterly
court was in session, but now all dutifully in place voting in their
own remote districts. The dust, the suffocating heat, the stale, vapid
air, the indescribable sense of a lower levelall these affected her
like a veritable burden, accustomed as she was to the light and rare
mountain breeze, to the tempered sun, the mist, and the cloud. The new
and untried conditions of town life trammeled and constrained her. She
had a certain pride, and she feared she continually offended against
the canons of metropolitan taste. In every passing face she saw
surprise, and she fancied contempt. In every casual laugh she heard
ridicule. Her brain was a turmoil of conflicting anxieties, hopes,
resolutions, and in addition these external demands upon her attention
served to intensify her absorbing emotions and to irritate her nerves
rather than to divert or soothe them. She had escaped from the relative
at whose house she was making a visit, craftily timed to include
election day, on the plea that she wished to see something of the town.
Ye don't live up on the mounting, Cousin Anice, 'mongst the deer, an'
b'ar, an' fox, like me, she had said jestingly, or ye'd want ter view
all the town ye kin. And once outside the shabby little palings, she
returned no more for hours.

Along the scorching streets she wandered, debating within herself
anxious questions which, she felt, affected all her future, and
unfitting herself still further to reach that just and wise conclusion
she desired to compass. She could not altogether abstract her mind,
despite the interests which she had at stake. She noticed that her
unaccustomed feet stumbled over the flag-stones of the pavementFit
fur nothin' but followin' the plough! she muttered in irritation. She
hesitated at the door of a store, then sidled sheepishly in, tearing
her dress on a nail in a barrel set well in the corner and out of the
way.

But while looking over the pile of goods which she had neither the
wish nor the money to purchase, she could have sunk with shame with the
sudden thought that perhaps it was not the vogue in Colbury to keep a
clerk actively afoot to while away the idle time of a desperately idle
woman. She could not at once decide how she might best extricate
herself, and for considerable time the empty show of an impending
purchase went on.

I'llI'll kem an' see 'bout'n it ter-morrer, she faltered at
last. Much obleeged.

No trouble to show goods, said the martyr of the counter,
politely. In truth he had in the course of his career shown them as
futilely to women who were much older and far, far uglier, and
contemplating purchase as remotely.

She went out scarlet, slow, tremulous, and walking close into the
wall like an apprehensive cat, looking now and again over her shoulder.
She wondered if he laughed when he was alone.

Her shadow was long now as it preceded her down the street, lank,
awkward, clumsy. She took note of the late hour which it intimated, and
followed the extravagant, lurching caricature of herself to her
cousin's house, a little unpainted, humble building set far back in the
yard, against the good time coming when a more ornate structure should
be prefixed. The good time seemed still a long way off. Her cousin's
ironing-board was on the porch, and presently a lean, elderly, active
woman whisked out, her flat-iron in her hand.

Cousin Anice, called Theodosia from the gate, how's the 'lection
turned out?

Cousin Anice paused to put her finger in her mouth; thus moistened,
she touched it to the flat-iron, which hissed smartly, and which she
applied then to the apron on the board.

Laws-a-massy! chile, the polls is jes' closed, an' all the country
deestric's ter be hearn from. We won't know till ter-morrertill late
ter-night, nohow.

Theodosia leaned against the gate. How could she wait! How could she
endure the suspense! She thought of Justus, and of her promise to fix
the date of the wedding on election day, but only as an additional
factor of trouble in her own anxiety and indecision.

Wat's been hyar ez cross ez two sticks, said Mrs. Elmer. She
paused to hold up the apron, exquisitely white, and sheer, and stiff,
and to gaze with critical professional eyes upon it; she was what is
known as a beautiful washer and ironer, although otherwise not
comely. Wat's beat plumb out o' sight, ef the truth war knowed, I
reckon. He 'lows he's powerful 'feared. Ef't war Justus, now, he'd
hev been 'lected sure. Justus is a mighty s'perior man; pity he never
hed no eddication. He could hev done anythingsharp ez a brier. Yes;
Wat's beat, I reckon.

In the instant Theodosia's heart sank. But she turned from the
palings, and sauntered resolutely on. It well behooved her to take
counsel with herself. I mought hev made a turr'ble, turr'ble mistake,
she muttered. She was sensible of a sharp pang pervading her
consciousness. Nevertheless, judgment clamored for recognition.

She walked down the street with a freer step, her head lifted, her
self-respect more secure. With the possible collapse of her prospect of
living in Colbury, and her ambition to adjust herself to the exigent
demands of its more ornate civilization, her natural untrained grace
was returning to her. She felt that she was certainly stylish enough
for the hills, where she was likely to live all her days, and with this
realization she quite unconsciously seemed easy enough, unconstrained
enough, graceful enough, to pass muster in a wider sphere. Her heart
was beating placidly now with the casting away of this new expectation
that had made all its pulses tense. The still air was cooler, or at
least darker. A roseate suffusion was in the sky, although a star
twinkled there. More people were in the streets; doors and windows were
open, and faces appeared now and again among the vines and curtains. As
she hesitated on the street corner, two young girls in white dresses
and with fair hair passed her. She watched them with darkening brow as
they drew hastily together, and suddenly she overheard the
half-smothered exclamation which had a dozen times to-day barely
escaped her ears.

What a pretty, pretty girl! Oh, my! how pretty, how pretty!

Theodosia stood like one bewitched; a light like the illumination of
jewels was in her sapphire eyes; the color surged to her cheek; she
lifted up her head on its round, white throat; her lips curved. Oh,
poor fool! she thought in pity for herself, for this was what the
Colbury people had been saying all day in their swift, recurrent
glances, their half-masked asides, their furtive turning to look after
her. And sheto have given herself a day of such keen misery
unconscious of their covert encomiums!

I live up thar in the wilderness till I jes' don't sense nothin',
she said.

All the wilting prospects of life were refreshed as a flower in the
perfumed dew-fall. She felt competent, able to cope with them all; her
restored self-confidence pervaded her whole entity, spiritual and
material. She walked back with an elastic step, a breezy, debonair
manner, and she met Justus Hoxon at the gate of her cousin's yard with
a jaunty assurance, and with all the charm of her rich beauty in the
ascendant.

He would fain have detained her in the twilight. What's that ye
promised to tell me 'lection day?

I 'lowed the day Wat war 'lected, she temporized, laying her hand
on the gate, which his stronger hand kept still closed.

Waal, this is the day Wat is 'lected.

She drew back. Even in the dim light he could see her blue eyes
widening with inquiry as she looked at him.

I 'lowed the returns warn't all in, she said doubtfully.

They ain't, but enough hev kem in sence the polls closed ter gin
him a thumpin' majority. He's safe. The tense ring of triumph was in
his voice.

The scene was swimming before her; she was dazed by the sudden
alternations of hope and despair, of decision and counter-decision, by
the seeming instability of all this. Once more she thought, in a
tremble, and with a difference, of the mistake she might have made. She
held to the gate to keep her feet, no longer to open it.

What did ye promise ter tell me 'lection day? he demanded once
more, clasping her hand as it lay on the palings.

'Lection day? she said with a forced laugh't ain't e-ended yit.
An', with a sudden resolution of effecting a diversionafore it
is e-ended I want ter git a peep through that thar thing they call
a tellingscope, ef they let women folks look through it.

But after supper there was a sufficiency of fluttering white dresses
astir in the court-house yard, and now and again crossing the wide,
ill-paved street thither, to warrant Theodosia in dispensing with her
cousin's company, much to that sophisticated worthy's relief.

I hev seen all Colbury's got ter show, she said with sated pride.
An' bein' ez I hev hed a hard day's ironin', I hev got a stitch in my
side.

I'd onderstan' that better if ye hed hed a hard day's sewin', said
Justus. He was in high feather, eager, jubilant, drinking in all the
rich and subtle flavors of success with the gusto of personal triumph.

He air prouder'n Wat, more than one observer opined.

There was another fine exhibition of pride on display in the
court-house yard that evening. One might have inferred that Dr. Kane
had made the comet, from his satisfaction in its proportions, his
accurate knowledge and exposition of its history, its previous
appearances, and when its coming again might be expected. He was the
principal physician of the place, and the little telescope was his
property, and he had thus generously loaned it to the public with the
hope of illuminating the general ignorance by a nearer view of the
starry heavens, while it served his own and his neighbors' interest in
the nightly progress of the great comet. Total destruction had been
prophesied as the imminent fate of the telescope, but it had so far
justified its owner's confidence in the promiscuous politeness of
Kildeer County, and had been a source of infinite pleasure to the
country folks from the coves and mountains, who had never before seen,
nor in good sooth heard of, such an instrument. For weeks past almost
all night curious groups took possession of it at intervals, and
doubtless it did much to enlarge their idea of science and knowledge of
celestial phenomena, for often Dr. Kane's idle humor induced him to
stand by and explain the various theories touching comets,their
velocity, their substance or lack of substance, their recurrence, their
status in the astral economy,and cognate themes. As he was a man of
very considerable reading and mental qualifications, of some means for
the indulgence of his taste, and a good deal of leisure, the synopsis
of astronomical science presented in the successive expositions was
very well worth listening to, especially by the more ignorant of the
community, who were thus enlightened as to facts hitherto foreign even
to their wildest imaginings.

But following hard on every benefaction is the trail of ingratitude,
and certain of the irreverent in the crowd found a piquant zest in
secret derision of the doctor, who sometimes did, in truth, present the
air of a showman with a panorama. More especially was this the case
when his enthusiasm waxed high, and his satisfaction in the glories of
the comet partook of a positive personal pride.

What's he goin' ter do about it? demanded one grinning rustic of
another on the outskirts of the crowd.

Put salt on its tail, responded his interlocutor.

Others affected to believe that the doctor was performing a great
feat with the long bow, especially in the tremendous measurements of
which he seemed singularly prodigal. A reference to the height of the
mountains of the moon as compared with the neighboring ranges elicited
a whispered hope that the roads were better there than those of the
Great Smoky; and an inquiry concerning the probable fate of the comet
provoked a speculation that when he was done with it he would sell it
at public outcry to the highest bidder at the east door of the
court-house.

Close about the stand, however, the crowd took on something of the
demeanor of a literary society. Discussions were in order, questions
asked and answered, authorities quoted and refuted: the other
physician, who practiced much in consultation with Dr. Kane, two or
three clergymen, several of the officers of the court, and a number of
lawyers, all taking part. The more youthful members of the gathering
affected the role of peripatetic philosophers, and sauntered to and
fro, arm in arm, in the light of the waxing moon.

The big black shadows of the giant oaks were all dappled with silver
as the beams pierced the foliage and fell to the ground below; only the
cornice of the building threw an unbroken image, massive and sombre, on
the sward. The low clustering roofs of the town had a thin bluish haze
hovering about them, and were all softly and blurringly imposed on the
vaguely blue sky and the dim hills beyond. Among them a vertical silver
line glinted, sharply metallic,the steeple of a church. Here and
there a yellow light gleamed from a lamp within a window. No sound came
from the streets; all the life of the place seemed congregated here.

There was a continual succession of postulants to gaze through the
telescope, some gravely curious, some stolidly iconoclastic and
incredulous, others with covert levity, and still others,
self-conscious, solicitous, secretly determined to affect to see all
that other people could see, lest some subtle incapacity, some flagrant
rusticity, be inferred from failure. These last were hasty observers,
scarcely waiting to adjust the eye to the lens, fluttered, and prolific
of inapt exclamations, which too often betrayed the superficial
character of the investigation. To this class did Theodosia belong.

Plumb beautiful! she murmured under her breath, after a momentary
contact of her dazzled eye with the brass rim of the telescope.

Try ag'in, 'Dosia! exclaimed Justus, aghast at this perfunctory
dismissal of the comet, as she turned to go away.

She winced a little from his voice, clear, vibrant and urgent, for
Justus had no solicitude concerning the superior canons of Colbury
touching etiquette, and suffered none of her anxieties. She caught Dr.
Kane's eyes fixed upon him as she moved hastily away, and then he came
up beside Justus, who stood near the telescope.

Justus glanced after her. Walter had joined hernot so soon,
however, but that she heard a half-suppressed criticism on her lover as
he turned to the telescope and Dr. Kane's exposition.

Pity he's got no educationsmart fellow, but can't even read and
write.

Smart enough to be an apt pupil. The others pressed close around,
listening to the measured voice of the physician and the quick,
pertinent questions of the star-gazer.

It is as an open scroll, that magnificent, wonder-compelling cult of
the skies, not the sealed book of other sciences. Since the days of the
Chaldean, all men of receptive soul in solitary places, the sailor, the
shepherd, the hunter, or the hermit, whether of the wilderness of
nature or the isolation of crowds, have read there of the mystery of
the infinite, of the order and symmetry of the plan of creation, of the
proof of the existence of a God, who controls the sweet influences of
Pleiades and makes strong the bands of Orion. The unspeakable thought,
the unformulated prayer, the poignant sense of individual littleness,
of atomic unimportance, in the midst of the vast scheme of the
universe, inform every eye, throb in every breast, whether it be of the
savant, with all the appliances of invention to bring to his cheated
senses the illusion of a slightly nearer approach, or of the
half-civilized llanero of the tropic solitudes, whose knowledge
suffices only to note the hour by the bending of the great Southern
Cross. It is the heritage of all alike.

For Justus Hoxon, who had followed the slow march of the stars
through many a year in the troubled watches of the night, when anxiety
and foreboding could make no covenant with sleep, there was, in one
sense, little to learn. He knew them all in their several seasons, the
time of their rising, when they came to the meridian, and when they
were engulfed in the west, till with another year they sparkled on the
eastern rim of the sky. He listened to Dr. Kane's explanation of this
with an air of acceptance, but he hardly heeded the detail of their
distance from the earth and from one anotherhe knew that they were
far,and he shook his head over speculations as to their physical
condition, vegetation, and inhabitation. Ye ain't got no sort o' means
o' knowin' sech, Doctor, he said reprehensively, gauging the depths of
the ignorance of the wise man.

He heard their names with alert interest, and repeated them swiftly
after his mentor to set them in his memory. By George! he cried
delightedly, I hed no idee they hed names!

And as the amateur astronomer, pleased with so responsive a glow,
began the tracing of the fantastic imagery of the constellations,
detailing the story of each vague similitude, he marked the sudden dawn
of a certain enchantment in his interlocutor's mind, the first subtle
experience of the delights of the ideal and the resources of fable. It
exerted upon Dr. Kane a sort of fascinated interest, the observation of
this earliest exploration of the realms of fancy by so keen and
receptive an intelligence. The comet, the telescope, the crowd, were
forgotten, as with Hoxon at his elbow he made the tour of the
court-house yard, from point to point, wherever the best observation
might be had of each separate sidereal etching on the deep blue. For a
time the crowd casually watched them with a certain good-natured
ridicule of their absorption, and the telescope maintained its interest
to the successive wights who peered through at the comet still
splendidly ablaze despite the light of the gibbous moon. The ranks of
young people promenaded up and down the brick walks and the grassy
spaces. Elder gossips sat on the court-house steps, or stood in groups,
and discussed the questions of the day. Gradually disintegration began.
The clangor of the gate rose now and then as homeward-bound parties
passed through, becoming constantly more frequent. Still the shifting
back and forth of the thinning ranks of the peripatetic youth went on,
and laughter and talk resounded from the court-house steps. At
intervals the telescope was deserted; the motionless trees were bright
with the moon and glossy with the dew. The voice of guard-dogs was now
and again reverberated from the hills. The languid sense of a late hour
had dulled the pulses, and when Justus Hoxon turned back to earth it
was to an almost depopulated scene, the realization of the approach of
midnight, and the sight of Theodosia sitting alone in the moonlight on
the steps of the east door of the court-house, waiting for him with a
touching patience, as it seemed to him at the moment.

Air you-uns waitin' fur me, 'Dosia, all by yerse'f? he demanded
hastily, with a contrite intonation.

I 'pear to be all by myse'f, she said, with a playful feigning of
uncertainty, glancing about her. She gave a forced laugh, and the
constraint in her tone struck his attention.

Why, 'Dosia, he broke in vehemently, I hev axed ye twice ter-day,
an' I didn't ax ye jes' now 'kase ye hed been hyar so long alone, an' I
wanted ter take ye ter yer cousin Anice's ef so be ye wanted ter go.
He stopped for a moment. Then, with a change of tone, Ye can't make
out ez I hev been anything but hearty in lovin' yenearly all yer life
long! His voice rang out with a definite note of conviction, of
assertion.

Reproach was an untenable ground. She desisted from the effort. Her
eyes wandered down the street that lay shadowy with gable, and
dormer-window, and long chimneys, in sharp geometric figures in the
moonshine, alternating with the deeper shadow of the trees. There were
no lights save a twinkle here and there in an upper window.

A flush rose to his pale cheeks. His heart was beating fast with
heavy presage. He hesitated to demand his fate at so untoward a moment.
He took off his hat, mechanically fanning with its broad brim, and
gazing about him at the slowly dulling splendor of the moonlight as the
disk tended further and further toward the west. The stars were
brightening gradually, and within the range of his vision flared the
great comet, every moment the lustre of its white fire intensifying. He
only saw; he did not note. His every faculty was concentrated on the
girl's drawling voice as she began again, hesitating, and evidently at
a loss.

Waal, I hate ter tell ye, Justus, but I hev ter do it, an' I mought
ez well the day that I promised ter set the day. It'sit's
never! I ain't goin' ter marry ye at all!

Theodosia had recovered her poise. Now that she had begun she felt
suddenly fluent. It did not accord with her estimate of her own
attractions to dismiss a lover because he had forgotten her. She began
to find a relish in the situation, and sought to adjust its details
more accurately to her preferences.

Justus, I know ye never furgot me fur one minute. I kin find no
fault with yer likin' fur me.

She had never seen a stage. She had never heard of a theatre, but
she was posing and playing a part as definitely as if it graced the
boards.

He detected a certain spurious note in her voice. It bewildered him.
He stared silently at her.

W-a-al, she drawled, looking away at the skies, her unthinking
eyes arrested, too, by the blazing comet, I did 'low wunst I
would. But a man with eddication would suit me bes', an' ye hain't got
none.

No more hev ye, he argued warmly. He was clinging for dear life to
his vanishing hope of happiness. He did not realize depreciation in his
wordsonly the facts that made them suited to each other. Ye know ye
wouldn't take l'arnin' at schoolan' I couldn't git it;
'pears ter me we air 'bout ekal.

It air a differ in a 'oman, said Theodosia, quickly. A 'oman hev
got no call to be l'arned like a man.

This very subordinate view failed in this instance of the
satisfaction it is wont to give to the masculine mind.

The color flared into her face. How she resented his clemency to her
ignorance! She still sat in her lowly posture on the step, leaning her
bare head against the column of the porch, for her bonnet lay on the
floor beside her; but there was a suggestion of self-assertion in her
voice.

I ain't expectin' ter live all my days in the woods, like a deer or
suthin' wild. I expec' ter live in town with eddicated folks, ez be
looked up ter, an' respected by all, an' kin make money, an' hev a
sure-enough house. Her ambitious eyes swept the shadowy gables down
the street.

He broke out laughing; his voice was softer; his face relaxed.

Laws-a-massy! Dosia, he exclaimed, yer head's plumb turned by one
day's roamin' round town. Ye won't be in sech a hurry ter turn me off
whenst we git back ter the mountings.

She had risen to her feet; her eyes flashed upon him; her beautiful
face wore a look of pride. It might have elicited from another man a
protest of its beauty. He stared at her with an expression of alarm
that was almost ghastly.

Other men like me fur my looks, ef ye don't, Justus Hoxon, she
said in indignation.

Ef they jes' likes ye fur yer looks they won't like ye long, Hoxon
said severely. I'll like ye when yer brown head is ez white ez
cottonez much ez I like ye nowmore!more, I'll be bound! O
'Dosia, with a sudden renewal of tenderness, don't talk this hyar
cur'ous way! I dunno what's witched ye. But let's go home ter the
mountings, ter yer mother, an' see ef she can't straighten out any
tangle yer feelin's hev got inter.

It needed only thisthe allusion to her commonplace mother, the
recollection of the forlorn little mountain home, the idea of her
mother's insistent championship of Justus Hoxonto bring the avowal so
long trembling on her lips.

He gazed at her in the ever dulling light, that yet was clear enough
to show every lineamenteven the long black eyelashes that did not
droop or quiver above her great blue eyes.

Then thar's no more to be said. He spoke in a changed voice, calm
and clear, and she stared at him in palpable surprise. She had expected
an outburst of reproach, of beseechings, of protestation. She had
braced herself to meet it, and she felt the reaction. She was hardly
capable of coping with seeming indifference. It touched her pride. She
missed the tribute of the withheld pleadings. She sought to rouse his
jealousy.

It's another man I like, she said, betteroh, a heap
betterthan you-uns.

That's all right, then.

He wondered to hear the words so glibly enunciated. His lips seemed
to him stiff, petrifying. He looked very white about them. She did not
heed. She was angered, wounded, perplexed, by his acquiescence, his
calmness, his taciturnity. A wave of anxiety that was half regret went
over her. She felt lost in the turmoil of these complex emotions. With
that destructive impulse to hurl down, to tear, to strike, that is an
element of a sort of blind irritation, she went on tumultuously:

Her aim was true that time. Her shaft struck in the very core of his
heart: but the satisfaction of this knowledge was denied her. He looked
very white, it is true, but the pale moonlight was on his face; and he
only said in an undertone:

Walter!

She laughed aloud, a sort of mockery of glee. She had expected to
enjoy the revelation, and her laughter was an incident of the scene as
she had planned it.

We war a-courtin' consider'ble o' the time whilst ye war off
electioneerin', she said, with the side glance of her old coquetry.

She saw his long shadow on the pavement bend forward and recoil
suddenly. She did not look at him.

An' so ter-night, she went on briskly,she had truly thought it a
very good joke,whilst you-uns war a-star-gazing an' sech, Wat an' me
jes stepped inter the register's office thar, an' the Squair married
us. We 'lowed ye didn't see nothin' of it through the tellingscope, did
ye? So Wat said I must tell ye, ez he didn't want ter tell ye.

She could not see his face, the light was dulling so, and he had
replaced his wide hat. There was a moment's silence. Then his voice
rang out quite strong and cheerful, Why, then thar's no more to be
said.

He stood motionless an instant longer. Then suddenly he turned with
a wave of his hand that was like a gesture of farewell, and she marked
how swiftly his shadow seemed to slink from before him as he walked
away, and passed the corner of the house, and disappeared from view.

She gazed silently after him for a moment. Then, leaning against the
column, she burst into a tumult of tears.

* * * * *

Daylight found Justus Hoxon far on the road to the mountains. In the
many miles, as he fared along, his thoughts could hardly have been
pleasant company. As he sought to discover fault or flaw in himself,
search as he might, he could find naught that might palliate the
flippant faithlessness of his beloved, or the treachery of his brother.
His ambition might have been too worldly a thing, but not a pulse of
that most vital emotion beat for himself. He realized it nowhe
realized his life in looking back upon this completed episode, as he
might have done in the hour of death. He had so expended himself in the
service of others that there was naught left for him. He had no
gratulation in it, no sense of the virtue of unselfishness, no
preception of achievement; it only seemed to him that his was the most
flagrant folly that ever left a man in the world, but with no place in
it. A sorry object for pride he seemed to himself, but he quivered, and
scorched, and writhed in its hot flames. His one object was to take
himself out of the sight and sound of Colbury, till he might have
counsel within himself, and perfect his scheme of revengenot upon the
woman. Poor Theodosia, with her limitations, could hardly have
conceived how she had shattered the ideal to which her image had
conformed in his mind, as she had stood on the porch and vaunted her
beauty, and her belief in its power, and her pitiful ambitions. The
woman was heartily welcome to the lot she had chosen. But the
treacherous man,it was not in Justus Hoxon's scheme of things to
receive a blow and return nothing. A hardy fighter he was esteemed,
albeit his prowess was eclipsed by his more peaceful virtues. This,
however, should be returned in kind. He would make no attack to be put
in the wrong, arrested, perhaps, after the Colbury interpretation of
assault and battery. But Walter had many a weak point in his armor,
glaringly apparent now to the once fond brother.

Only a surly, bitter word he had for greeting to the few neighbors
whom he met, and who went their way in the conviction that his brother
had lost his election; for none ascribed any emotion of Justus Hoxon's
to his own sake.

He reached in the evening the little cabin where the padlock hung on
the door, and the heavy, untrodden dust of the drought lay without; and
so it was that the old days when Fambly had struggled through their
humble experiences came back to him with that incomparable sweetness of
the irrevocable past. Hardships! How could there be, with fond faith in
one another, and in all the world! Povertyso rich they were in love!
Life, after all, is more than meat, and there is no hunger like that of
a famished heart. He reviewed that forlorn, anxious, struggling
orphanage, transfigured in the subtle glow of regretful, loving memory,
as one might gaze into the rich glamours of a promised land. Alas, that
our promised land should be so often the land we made haste to leave!
As he sat down on the step he saw the ragged cluster of children troop
down the road from twenty years agone, almost as if he actually beheld
them, himself at the head. He could still feel their plump palms
clinging to his hand at the first suggestion of danger. He had led them
a right thorny path, each to a successful goal. And now could he turn
against Fambly? Should he denounce the treachery of one of the little
group that he could see huddling together for warmth on the meagre
hearthstone, while outside the snows of a long-vanished winter were
a-whirl? Should he pull down the temple on Walter's successthe pride
of them all? He remembered how his sisters, with that feminine
necessity of hero-worship in their untaught little hearts, had clung
about Walter. He remembered too that almost every thought of his own
life had been given to this man, who had ruthlessly and secretly robbed
him of all that was dear to him, and in such wise as to hold him up to
ridicule, a scoffing jest, a very good joke! So Walter considered it,
and so doubtless would all Colbury. It would have surprised Walter, but
his sometime mentor's cheek burned with shame for him.

No; the claims of Fambly were paramount. He gave it precedence, as
in the old days he had denied himself when Fambly dined at the
skillet, and the bone and the broken bit he took for his share. He
could not bring discredit upon it. He would not lift his hand against
it. It was the object of a lifelong allegiance, and he only marveled
that, since the uses of the loyalty were at an end, the empty life
should go on. He gazed mechanically at the padlock as he sat there with
his dreary thoughts, remembering with what different heart he had
turned the key. Ah, Happinessto pass out from a door, and knock there
never again!

He rose at last, his burden adjusted to his strength. He had never
worked for thanks. It hardly mattered to him now how his efforts were
requited. And though he encountered treachery at close quarters,of
his own household,it was not in his heart to be a traitor to Fambly
and its obvious interests. So he too went out from the door in the
footprints of Happinesslikewise to return no more.

* * * * *

Walter Hoxon had not altogether ill-gauged the general proclivity to
deem all fair in love or war. He was accounted to have performed
something of a feat in the clever outwitting of his unsuspecting rival,
and to the minds of the many there was an element of the romantic in
this hasty wedding of the damsel of his choice almost under the eyes of
the expectant bridegroom. He had added to the prestige of success in
politics the lustre of valiance in the lists of love, and he
encountered laughing congratulations from his friends and political
supporters, which served much to reassure him and to banish a vague and
subtle anxiety as to public opinion that had begun to gnaw at his
heart. They all seemed to think he had done a very fine thing, and that
it was a very good joke, and he was soon most jauntily of their
persuasion. He could not know that here and there people were saying to
one another, aside, the words he had feared to hear in reproachthat
the swain whom he and his lady-love had conspired to dupe was his
brother, who had done everything for himhad, as a mere child,
encountered and vanquished poverty, had clothed and educated this man
and his sisters, had served his every interest with a perfect
self-abnegation all his life; that it was his brother who had won his
election, being a man of much influence and untaught eloquence, and of
great native tact and intelligence; that the secrecy, the conspiracy,
and the publicity of the dramatic dénouement, in lieu of an open
rivalry, rendered it a case of the most flagrant ingratitude, and
argued much unworthiness in the people's choice.

But suddenly a doubt began to prevail as to whether he were the
people's choice. In the returns from the farthest districts, not heard
from till quite late in the day, in which Walter Hoxon had felt secure,
Quigley developed unexpected strength. In great perturbation Walter
swiftly patrolled the town in search of Justus; unprecedented
developments were imminent, and he hardly dared face the emergency
without his valiant backer at hand. Justus had disappeared as utterly
as if the night had swallowed him up.

Consarn the tormentin' critter! exclaimed Walter, mopping his brow
as he stood at the little gate of Mrs. Elmer's yard, returning thither,
after his fruitless searching, in the hope of finding his brother among
the familiar faces. Mad ez a hornet, I'll be bound, an' lef' me in the
lurch. Beat arter all, I'll bet!

Theodosia listened, tremulous, aghast. All the fine prospects that
had seemed so near, into whose charming perspectives she might in
another moment have stepped as actually as upon that path to the gate,
were drawing away, dissolving, as tenuous, as intangible, as those
morning sunlit mists shifting and rising from before the massive blue
ranges of the Great Smoky Mountains, and dallying with the distances
into invisibility.

I tole ye ag'in an' ag'in ye bes' not be too sure, she
said, a sob in her throat, with an obvious disposition to wreak her
disappointment upon him.

It was crushed in the moment.

He turned a frowning face full upon her. Hold yer jaw! he cried
violently. Ef 't warn't for you-uns I'd hev Justus hyar, an' I'll be
bound he could fix it. Ye miserable deceitful crittersettin'
two own brothers at loggerheads! I'll take no word from you-uns
sure!

He shook his head indignantly at her, clapped his hat upon it, and
turned desperately away as a man came running up. Have ye found
Justus? Wat exclaimed.

Justus? No. But they say it's a tiea tie!

For the news was already bruited throughout the townin a ferment
of excitement, because of the closeness of the contestthat the two
candidates, racing gallantly neck and neck, had come under the wire
together with not so much as the point of a nose to distinguish the
winner.

Walter stood still for a moment, his dark eyes dilated with
eagerness and anxiety. Suddenly he leaned back against the gate-post
with a deep sigh of relief and relaxation.

Then it's all right, he exclaimed breathlessly. The coroner's my
frien', ef I ain't got another in the worl'. Old Beckett will stan' by
me, sure!

As the coroner held the election, the sheriff himself being a
candidate, it was his duty to give the casting vote. This prolongation
of the jeopardy of the result heightened the popular interest, the more
as the officer did not immediately decide upon his action in the
matter.

I want a leetle time ter think it overa leetle time fur the
casting vote, he said, as he gnawed at a plug of tobacco, then crossed
his ponderous legs while he leaned back in a splint-bottomed chair in
the register's office.

He was a tall, portly man, with a large, round imperious face,
thatched heavily with iron-gray hair. He wore no beard, and was dressed
in brown jeans, which imparted a certain sallowness to his dark
complexion. He had small gray eyes, at once shrewd and good-natured,
but his manner was bluff, imperative, and all the judiciary of the
State could hardly have compassed an expression of a greater sense of
importance.

He was observed with much interest by a number of men who lounged
about the room. A tense sub-current of curiosity underlay the suspense
natural to the occasion, for it was well known to the gossips about the
court-house that he and the sheriff had not been on the best of terms;
when their official functions had happened to bring them into contact
they had clashed smartly, and the county rang with their feuds. His
course was obvious to allhis hesitation only an affectation, lest a
too vehement animosity be imputed to him.

Poor Quigley's cake is dough, observed one of the incumbent's
friends in an undertone, standing with his hands in his pockets, and
gazing through the long dark vista of the hall out of the door into the
sunlight's glow, as it fell upon the few houses and the great stretch
of arable land beyond. A horizontal shadow of a cloud lay at its
extremity, as definite as a material barrier, and far above it rose
tiers of green and bronze hills like a moulding to the base of the
lapis-lazuli-tinted mountains.

This never happened in this county before, said the register,
glancing up from a big book in which he was copying the doings of the
party of the first part and the party of the second partthe
familiar spirits of his den.

Why, no! exclaimed the coroner, with a pleased laugh. To me the
castin' vote is ez phee-nomenal an' ez astonishin' ez the
comet. He chuckledthe fat man's unctuous laugh. Something like the
comet, too: it has its place in the legal firmament, but 't ain't often
necessary to use it.

That war a toler'ble funny tale 'bout the comet they air a-tellin'
roun' town, observed a young countryman pausing in front of the two,
his hands in his pockets, his hat on the back of his red head, a wide
grin of enjoyment on his freckled face,about the feller that hed his
sweetheart a-courtin' out hyar in the yard last night, an' tuk ter
lookin' at the comet through the spy-glass, an' whilst he war busy
a-star-gazin' the comet, another feller stepped up with the Squair, an'
married his galha! ha! ha!

Beckett looked up interested. Incongruously enough a vein of romance
ran through the massive strata of conceit, and intolerance, and
vainglory, and pertinacity, and pugnacity that made up the very
definite structure of his nature. He dearly loved a lover. He was as
sentimental as a girl of eighteen, and he melted instantly into suavest
amenities at the first intimation of a love-story in abeyance.

I ain't heard 'bout that, he said in a mellifluous voice. Ye know
I was tucked up in yonderhe jerked his thumb over his
shouldertendin' to the countin' of the votes, bein'
returnin'-officer. Who married?

Beckett elevated his heavy, grizzled eyebrows. A sudden, secret,
important look, as if he were colloguing with some one vanquished in
argument, crossed his face. He nodded once or twice, but only said
acquiescently: Ahha! Ahha! Toler'ble enterprisin'. Run fur office
an git married 'lection day.

He smiled broadly. Any innovation on the stereotyped methods
appealed to him with the grace and relish of a new metre to a neophytic
rhymester.

Wat's a nice boy, a mighty good boy, too, he went on, with his
oily voice quite soft. Run mighty well in this 'lection, too. He's a
mighty smart, good boy.

Well, now, said the register, suddenly putting his pen behind his
ear, and leaving the party of the first part and the party of the
second part to their own devices, I'm blest if I don't think Justus is
worth a hundred of Wat, lock, stock, an' barrel.

Once more the grizzled eyebrows went up toward the iron-gray thatch
of the coroner's forehead. Justus! I'm free ter say I dunno
nobody equal ter Justus. I hev known Justus sence he war knee-high ter
a pa'tridgethe way he did keer fur them chil'n, an' brung 'em up ter
be equal ter anybody in the lan'! An' smartsmart ain't the
word fur him! Ef he hed education he could do anything; but he hed ter
stan' back an' let the t'other chil'n git it. Whar would Wat be ef 't
warn't fur Justus?

That's what makes me say 't was a mighty mean trick he played on
Justus, the register broke in.

Who? How? demanded the coroner.

Why, Justus was the t'other feller. Wat an' the girl never let
him have an inklin' of it. They just fooled him along, believin'
she was goin' ter marry him. An' las' night when it was reported
all over town that Wat was elected, an' Justus took time from
electioneerin' fur his brother to breathe, they tolled him out to look
at the comet, an' slipped off an' married.

The man of sentiment, with the election in his hand, sat looking
loweringly about him. His satisfaction was wilted; his fat hung
flabbily on his big bones; his small eyes were hard and cold.

Poor Theodosia! She never forgot that return home, through all the
dust of the drought and the glare of the midsummer sun. Even to herself
her nature seemed too small for the magnitude of the various anguish
which she was called upon to endure. The sharp alternations of
certainty and doubt which she had undergone seemed slight, seemed
naught, in comparison with the desolate finality of despair, the fang
of hopeless regret, and the dread of the veiled future with which she
had made no covenant of expectation or preparation, that preyed upon
every plodding step as she went. Her anxiety as to the wisdom of her
course was not assuaged by the aghast dismay of her mother's face, when
she reached the little house overlooking the encircling mountains,as
still, as meditative, as majestically unmoved, as if no more troublous
world existed,and unfolded the story of her visit to Colbury. She
felt for the first time in her life how Justus Hoxon's friend merited
his confidence. Her mother had no reproaches, no sarcasms, no outbursts
of grief. She addressed herself to the support and the comforting of
her daughter, but with so evident a hopelessness and an expectation of
bitter things to come that the girl burst out sobbing afresh.

D' ye think Wat air so wuthless ez all that!

The discipline of life began for her here. As the price of his
political defeat, Walter had scant relish for the triumph he had scored
in love. He was surly, taciturn, or else loud with reproaches and
criminations, which grew more vehement and contumelious if she
answered, seeking to exculpate or justify herself; and if she were
silent, her submission seemed to exasperate him and to develop a crafty
ingenuity in finding fault. He brooded grimly on his brother's probable
exultation when he should return and hear the news of the casting vote.
To fortify himself for the encounter he spent much time at the still,
and his drunken, reasonless wrath was even more formidable to the
object of his displeasure than his sober, surly resentment against her
as the cause of all his disasters. But Justus did not come. Walter
began to doubt if the news of the untoward result of the election, in
which he had spent all his energies, had reached him. He also began to
desire, contradictorily enough, that his brother should know it. For
although Justus must needs recognize it as a mortal blow to his dearest
foe, it had the capacity of doing much execution in its recoil. Justus
had had the election so greatly at heart; he had struggled, and
planned, and managed with such preternatural activity and tact and
energy from the first, that it would smite him hard to know that it was
all in vain. And then his vicarious ambitions, his pride, his pleasure,
in the elevation of Fambly! Walter cast about futilely for an
assurance that he might have the satisfaction of reducing all this. He
knew that Justus, in his mistaken certainty of the result of the
election, would not ask for information, and that he could not read the
newspapers. A lettereven if there were any remote presumption as to
his addresswould lie indefinitely in the mail, and find its way at
last to the Dead Letter Office.

Walter realized after a time that Justus intended to return no
morethe woman he loved was his brother's wife. Justus had probably
put the breadth of the State between them, Walter sneeringly concluded.

He made haste to quarrel with his wife's mother, in his perverse
relish of aught that might give Theodosia pain, and they quitted her
home and took up their residence in the house in which Theodosia had
once expected to live, the scene of the early struggles of Fambly.

Theodosia's beauty could hardly be said to fade; it disappeared in
the overblowing. She grew very fat and unwieldy as the years wore on;
her face broadened, her florid complexion degenerated into a mottled
red and purple. She was no prettier than her mother had been when she
ridiculed her lover's eulogy of her mother's spiritual beauty. She had
a hard life with her drunken, idle, slothful husband, who habitually
imputed to her agency every evil that had ever befallen him, holding it
to excuse him from all exertion to better their very poor estate, and
whose affection had been easily kindled by her beauty and as easily
extinguished.

* * * * *

Justus, self-exiled from the mountains, tramped the valley roads,
hardly caring whither, and drifted finally to the outskirts of one of
the large manufacturing towns of Tennessee. He worked for some seasons
doggedly, drudgingly, on a farm near by, but found a sort of
entertainment in the sights and sounds within the city limits, as
having no association with the past which his memory dreaded. He
prospered in some sort, for although he was ignorant of all methods of
skilled labor, fidelity is an art with so few proficients that friends
and opportunities were not lacking. His progress was somewhat hampered,
however, despite his evident intelligence, by a doubt which prevailed
concerning his mental balance. He was often observed to stand and gaze
smilingly, fondly, after any group of ragged, dirty children; he,
although of the poorest, was profuse in gratuities to any callow beggar
who did not know enough of the world's ways to expect nothing of such
as he, as did the older ones. He could not read, but he bought
newspapers from the smallest of the guild of newsboys, and meditatively
turned the sheets in his hand, and then softly and slowly tore them to
bits. And these things created a doubt of his sanity, for who could
know how Fambly looked at him from the pinched face of every poor,
and cold, and hungry child?

At last, despite this unsuspected drawback, a congenial occupation
came to him. He was night watchman at a great factory, and as he paced,
all solitary, back and forth in the yard, he was wont to note the stars
as the infallible seasons brought them into place; and he began to
remember their names, and to trace the strange configuration of the
constellations, and to con again the stories woven into their shining
meshes which he heard at the time that the great comet blazed among
them.

And this is his never failing interestdark summer nights, when the
Galaxy opens a broad avenue of constellated light across the heavens,
seeming a veritable road, as if it might be the way to God's throne,
beaten hard and bright by the feet of saints and martyrs; or when the
moon is full, and autumnal glamours reign, and only the faint sidereal
outlines prevail; or when winter winds are high, and the snow lies on
slanting roofs, and spires gleam with icicles, and Orion draws his
scintillating blade; or when, all bedight in scarlet, Arcturus and his
sons are guided into the vernal sky.